No matter how you slice it, Harper has failed to lead Canada towards a sustained economic recovery from the financial crisis seven years ago. It doesn't matter how much public money he spends on ads claiming otherwise. Facts are facts. So, what does a government facing re-election do when its top agenda item, economic management, is in tatters? It changes the channel to something else.

Convicting and incarcerating those who return to Canada from fighting with extremist groups overseas alone is not enough. Radicalization spreads, particularly in prison, where many individuals feel wronged by the system and society more generally. Once those prisoners return to civilian life they take with them their twisted and radicalized beliefs and spread them in the communities where they live. Many of Canada's allies have their own de-radicalization programs in place for those who return home after joining terrorist organizations abroad.

What could be some of the factors leading to this pattern emerging from the province? One factor may be the high level of support the anti-terrorism bill has in the province. According to a LEGER poll released on February 9, a whopping 74 percent of Quebecers support the bill, and a further 62 percent support the mission against ISIS in Iraq.

Anyone can be a victim of surveillance. If you've used any of over a hundred popular file-hosting websites in the past three years, chances are you've had your online activity collected and analyzed by CSEC, acting without a warrant and with no independent oversight. There is a great deal that can be done to tackle our privacy deficit.

The shying away from liberal and democratic political institutions is concerning from a disaster management perspective. Research on tornado impacts in the American south of the 1950s found that those communities where hospitals refused to admit African-Americans struggled to gain resiliency and return to normal functioning post-disaster compared to tolerant communities.

Impaired drivers continue to routinely use the ER as a "get out of jail free card," escaping police assessment at accident scenes by claiming injury, and denying injury once they arrive at hospital. Being uninjured, they can then leave the Emergency Room quickly, often before police arrive.

Stephen Harper's Conservative government is quick to tout all it has done to improve Canada's economic competitiveness. But like competitive companies, competitive national economies require solid economic data. In scrapping the long-form census, the Harper administration has threatened the country's long-term economic prosperity.

Trudeau is the most impressive, practical, and smart political leader since the Jean Chrétien era. Since taking over a near-bankrupt, third place, humiliated party less than two years ago, he has made it a growing political movement. The party is now well-organized, better funded, and has attracted strong candidates and volunteers that truly represent the new Canada.

There is no doubt in my mind that what happened to the cartoonists of Charlie Hebdo was an unacceptable tragedy. Nobody should die because of their views.Still, despite the tragedy of the lives lost, I still cannot stand behind the "Je Suis Charlie" slogan. And the automatic herd of people rushing to back the slogan without applying critical thought to it or educating themselves about the publication is a deeply troubling phenomenon.

We know the dangers of having too many choices -- but what about not having any? Who in their "right mind" (you might wonder how many of "those" people are mentally sound and might be surprised to know the vast majority are) would sleep on a bench in "last seasons" (off-trend or simply off-prudence) clothes in freezing cold weather?

Often, the attitude in retaliation to anything -- political strategies included -- is one of "if we can't beat them, we'll join them." So why, then, has Justin Trudeau's Liberal party taken the opposite approach?

The federal government has finally backtracked on some of their cuts to the refugee health program brought about in 2012. After significant public opposition and a legal challenge on the basis of violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in July 2014, a federal court deemed the cuts to the refugee health program "cruel and unusual" treatment.

Mark Twain once said 'Give a man the reputation of an early riser and that man can sleep until noon.' Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney are responsible for three quarters of the national debt. Harper alone has added $170 billion. The Liberals get the rest. How either one gets away with even pretending to be fiscally responsible baffles me. Both parties have slept in well past noon. It's time for a rude awakening.

There has never been a more critical and opportune time to take control of Toronto's development plans. Our city is in the middle of a development boom, yet we face a housing crisis. Despite this grim reality, there is still the opportunity to do better for our city. In fact, we are well-positioned to build a beautiful city that is vibrant, inclusive, and more mindful of the environment.

When you're a woman, tone policing is rampant. Amid the hate and abuse, we are expected to stay as calm and eloquent as possible. Our justified rage is always attributed to over-sensitivity, hormones, or PMS-ing. We are treated as emotional, not intellectual beings, when the truth is we are emotional AND intellectual beings. Intellect without emotion is dead inside. There's a whopping double standard regarding tone between men and women (and of course others along the gender binary and non-binary folk). Men who are angry are passionate and driven. Women who are passionate and driven are just angry.

A guy who you think is attractive but who has some unsuitable personality traits comes up and asks you out. You say yes, even though what you really meant to say was no. "Why did I do that?" you wonder. According to new research from the University of Toronto and Yale University, rejecting unsuitable romantic partners is easy in hypothetical situations, but not so when considering a face-to-face proposition.

If the definition of charity can be improved by examining Scotland's law, certainly there is merit in looking to the civil law of Quebec for concepts that could enhance the meaning of charity in Canada. The Supreme Court of Canada has moved away from the common law tradition of enabling courts to evolve new charitable purposes by analogy to previously recognized purposes.

Today is International Men's Day, so let's join hands today and celebrate all that men have done for the world. Wow, I couldn't even type that with a straight face. But International Men's Day? Seriously? Every day is International Men's Day, or really International Cisgender Men's Day. Every day the achievements of men are celebrated. Every day their innovations are hailed. What's next? International White People Day? International Heterosexual Day? I'm sure some of you would love that.

Girls like me are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Our critiques about, let's say, the misogyny within our community are so often co-opted by white Eurocentric feminism as a kind of "see, look, the oppressed brown women need us!" And at the same time, I don't want to silence myself from critiquing by own community just because I'm scared that some white feminists may twist my words.

The illness of a young girl is saddening, and the preceding topics are important and timely. But now, with this court case, we've gone off the rails into unhelpful territory. A growing number of people are turning away from, and against, science and modernity, and for a number of causes -- environmentalism, mistrust of corporations, dislike of secularism, traditionalism, and in extreme cases religious fundamentalism.

Poloz is arguably Canada's most powerful economic policymaker. He has the ability to significantly change the bleak outlook facing young workers. Yet in essence, he encouraged unemployed youth to resign themselves to a grim reality, and simply find themselves something else to do. Working for free may not be ideal, he suggested, but it's better than nothing.

You're wrong about Canada. NBC, Global TV, CNN, ABC, on the news and on the screens. We've been through a lot since October 22, collectively, as a country. But how can you stand and say that we've lost our innocence, how can you print it like a litany, false sympathy for our tears?

The entire school in Ayr, Scotland, vibrated with anticipation. The lunchroom sounded more like a debate hall than a cafeteria. Kirsty McCahill watched the clock tick down to the closing bell. She rushed home, then to the nearby community centre to do what no Scottish 16-year-old had ever done before that day: vote on the future of her country.